Q:
Is there a fix yet for the ZoneAlarm problem you talked about in Friday's newsletter? If so, please tell us what we can do. Thanks for all your help!

A:
I knew this question would be popping up all over the place throughout the weekend and I was right! My e-mail Inbox is just filled with queries about the ZoneAlarm issue. First, just to get everyone up to speed, if you missed the article in Friday's newsletter (July 11, 2008), you can read it here. Basically, there was a complication between the July 2008 Windows Updates and the ZoneAlarm firewall program. After many users installed the Updates, they were left without an Internet connection, because ZoneAlarm was unable to recognize the changes. You can read all about it in the tip above, but for now, let's get down to business!

ZoneAlarm has released a few fixes for the Windows Updates problem. There are three different things you can do to get your computer back to normal. I'll go over all three of them and you can then decide which one will work the best for you. They're all legit and fairly easy to do, so just pick the one you think will benefit your computer the most. Okay, here we go!

1.) You can download and install all of the latest versions of ZoneAlarm, including ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite, ZoneAlarm Pro, ZoneAlarm Antivirus, ZoneAlarm Anti-Spyware and ZoneAlarm Basic Firewall. You can click on those links to download each separate program. With all of those utilities working together, you will be able to get your Internet connection back and your computer will run the same as it did before. If you don't want to install all of those programs (which is understandable), you can try one of the other methods below.

2.) The second option is moving your ZoneAlarm Internet Zone slider to the Medium setting. To do that, propecia allergy go to the ZoneAlarm Firewall window and click on the Firewall tab. From there, simply move the Internet Zone slider to Medium. Yours is probably set on High, so you just need to take it down a couple notches.

3.) The third option is actually uninstalling the Windows Updates hotfix that caused the trouble in the first place. To do that, go to Start, Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs. At the top of the Add/Remove Programs window, you should see a Show Updates checkbox. Check that box and then scroll down until you see an entry that says "Security update for Windows (KB951748)." (It should be one of the last items in your list). Once you've found it, click on the Remove button and the hotfix will uninstall.

Again, any of those three methods will reinstate your Internet access and you'll be able to do everything as usual again. You should also know that this issue only affects Windows 2000 and XP computers. Windows Vista is not affected. One more thing: if you're still having trouble after you go through this tip, you can contact ZoneAlarm's technical support here. After today, I hope you're all back up and running like you should be!